Tag Archives: Geneva

I had the pleasure of doing a photo shoot a few weeks back with baritone opera singer Lucio Fersurella while he practiced on a quiet Saturday afternoon in his regular studio near Geneva, Switzerland. Hopefully this will be the first of a few photo sessions that I may put towards a composition later. Here is a small sampling.

I am sitting in my own apartment’s living room feeling emotionally neutral, calm, rested and happy. The temperature inside of my apartment is perfect. I feel physically fair, albeit a bit weak and fatigued. I hear cars outside driving in the rain and the voices of people on the sidewalk below, but I can’t figure out what they are saying. I hear my neighbor’s footsteps above me. Birds begin to squawk outside, then a bus goes by. I check the time on my iPhone. Ten minutes to go and I think, “This is hard to do.” I sit back, take a deep breath to relax and I try to allow my thoughts to flow and then release. My emotional neutrality turns to thoughts about my mother and I feel emotion as if she were there with me. It occurs to me, “We carry those we love in our hearts even after they are gone.” I hear more cars, a family outside and a man walking by whistling and I think of how the people on the bus, the family and the man all have a story of their own and are on their way to do something on this gray and storming Sunday. I resist the urge to make to do lists in my head. I try to clear my mind. It does not work. I start to think about what I want to bake this coming week. Then my mother comes back into my thoughts. I feel content. Contentment is the main thing that I feel throughout the twenty minutes.

Our assignment is to sit in a quiet and safe place and meditate with our eyes closed for twenty minutes. Upon opening our eyes, we are to take pictures as inspiration strikes, which can be one picture or one hundred. The idea is to allow the current of subconscious energy to influence our creativity.

Since I could not keep my eyes closed the entire time during the first attempt, I did other sets. It was a good exercise for me both creatively and as a method of stress reduction.

Here is a sampling of what I came up with. You can also view select pictures at this link.